Listen, mister, you’re a guest
at the Night Owl Club
so you can sit here
all night long, tip me
after every song,
buy me scotch
till the final gong
but none of this will help.

You’ll still go home alone
unless some other lady has a need
to make her rent
and sees the opportunity
you offer. It won’t be me;
I can’t be bothered.
I need a different kind of man,
a man who’ll hug me tighter

than my panties can,
a big old man
whose big old tongue
will be my tampon
when I’m dry.
If you’ll get off that stool
and look in the mirror
behind those whiskey bottles

standing at attention,
you’ll see clearly why
you can never be that man,
not even for an hour.
I’m no Billie Holliday,
but even with my glasses off,
I can see that you
ain’t no John Wayne.

This evening
when I return to the hotel
I see in my pigeonhole
Angela’s writing
on a yellow envelope.

What excuse
will she have for not writing?
Too busy, perhaps,
stirring cauldrons of soup
while the cats dash about
licking her calves.

Or don’t the cats know enough
to lick at her calves?
Would that I were the cats
and the cats were taller.

Caseworker Determining Eligibility
Cabrini-Green Projects, Chicago

The child, age two, hammocked in the half
moon of his mother’s arms, is locked
in palsy, yet moves an eyelid as I ask,
moves the other as his mother answers,
application form interrogation.
The father was a white policeman.
“Curiosity,” the mother says. “No more.
I didn’t go with him for money.”

Tomorrow morning when I wake
it’ll be the nurse who’s crazy.
I’ll heave my body up
on its elbows and yell
in her ear, “It’s time for your pill.
Get dressed. Breakfast is ready

in the Day Room. Juice, rolls, bacon, eggs.
You’ll find a tray with your name on it,
faces you know, a chance for conversation.
Eat each meal at a different table.
Mingle. Before you can get out of here,
you have to love all the faces you hate.”